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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Sweet Korean Chicken Wings





I couldn't decide on which photo to use as the headliner for this post as they both have (multiple faults but) one virtue each: causing my salivary glands to go into overdrive. Being the boss of me and this blog, I chose both. So there. It's a historical moment; revel in it as I am.

I'd spied a Korean wing recipe from Soupbelly via Tastespotting at some point in June and while I put it on the Food Plan then (misnaming it), for some stupid (poor planning) reason postponed trying it.

This particular day and time was the "now" and I seized it. I didn't change anything except for the quantity of wings. Looking back it seems I used about 10 times the weight of wings, but realistically, it was probably just double the weight, a total of 6 lbs. The wings in my freezer must produce offspring, I swear. I had 24 wings, making 48 wing pieces once divided into flat wings and drumettes.

Sweet Korean Chicken Wings
from Soupbelly

6 lbs chicken wings
1/2 c flour
1/2 c cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Sweet Ginger Soy Sauce:
1/2 c ginger (sliced thinly)
1/2 c brown sugar
1/3 c honey
1 c water
1/4 c vinegar
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame seeds (optional)

Separate the drumettes from the wings, rinse with cold water and pat dry of excess liquid with paper towels.

The pile of wing pieces were divided over two plates with multiple layers of paper towel to allow proper drying.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, salt and pepper. Mix until combined.


In a deep frying pan, heat enough cooking oil to fully immerse a single layer of wings. Test the temperature by dropping a bit of flour into the oil. If it rises up and bubbles then the oil is hot enough.

Hard to see here, the flour indicated the oil was just about ready for frying.

In batches, toss chicken wing pieces in flour mixture.

Batches 1 and 4. By batch 4, the flour mixture was pretty slim, but still sufficient for coating.

Fry each batch of wings for at least 15 minutes; if wings aren’t fully immersed in oil, flip halfway to ensure both sides are cooked. Drain wings on wire rack.

Batch 1 -- I wondered if any of the flour mixture actually stuck to the wings!


Batch 2


Batch 3 -- I started getting lazy with the multiple photo by this point


Batch 4 -- totally over multiple photos of chicken frying now

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine all ingredients for sauce.


Boil until it is reduced to a thick sauce. Note that this will take about an hour at a low boil. Set aside.



To double fry:
Skim the loose fried chunkies from the oil with a wire strainer as best as you can.


Place the drained wings, in batches, back into the hot oil. Fry for at least 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Drain on wire rack.

Drumettes once- and twice-fried.

Transfer sauce to large bowl. Add twice-fried chicken in batches, mixing each batch thoroughly.


The wings were fantastic! I can personally attest to the fact that they are decent after a once-fry, better after a twice-fry and spectacular after being sauced.  I wound up eating (more than) twice what I'd anticipated eating for dinner, making repeated trips to the kitchen for another "taste" of the chicken.

Labor, while not intensive, was extensive to fry this many (48) wing pieces. That was due to the sheer number of wings (48) I had thawed and ready to fry. Looking back on it, for one person, a quarter of the wing pieces (12) would've been sufficient for dinner, a taste, and leftovers.

Cost:

This is difficult to determine as I don't know the weight of the wings I used and since the wings were from multiple birds, cost per wing would vary. How about I offer a SWAG? I say $10 to include oil, wings*, flour mixture and sauce ingredients. If that's about right, a huge portion of wings would be $2.50 per each of four servings. Yeah, that's about right, but still on the high side if you ask me.

*If you purchase wings at the store, expect a price of about $3/lb!  That's outrageous, especially when I consider them "leftovers" from whole chickens.

Serve chicken with steamed white rice and kimchi or with SuperBowl foods. Whatever you want, these wings are flexible.

Click for the printable


5 comments:

Lynne @ CookandBeMerry said...

Your chicken wings look delicious. I know how it is..they look small so we're tempted to eat a bunch. And the leftovers are small, too, so why not just finish them off. This happened to me recently. I love chicken wings!

The Cook said...

Thanks for the compliment, Lynne. Wings can be quite deceiving -- I didn't realize how much there was until after I started breading and frying them. By the time I was through once-frying the wings, I was ready to quit but so glad I didn't -- they were worth the effort.

Many thanks go out to SoupBelly for providing the recipe to the public. It's a keeper!

Sielski said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sielski said...

Very nice tasting. I was stirring it too often. It took me about 25 minutes to finish the sauce.

The Cook said...

Sielski, I'm glad you enjoyed the flavors. It took 25 minutes to finish the sauce -- that's not bad, looking back at the post it took mine an hour!